T41 - Pimped to death?

[tdavis34]

Hi all,

I am "pimping" my T41 and have already added a bigger battery, more memory and faster networking card. After all the helpful advice on here, I decided to get a new CPU as well, so I opted for a 1.7 GHz Dothan that I got on eBay for like $20.

When installing the Dothan, I got all the way in there and realized I didn't have any thermal paste. I sheepishly admit to trying to scrape the paste off the existing Banias CPU and put as much as possible onto the Dothan. Well, the Dothan seems to be bad (I wrote about this in another thread) so I put the Banias back in while waiting for a replacement Dothan. Note, I did not try to rescrape any paste back onto the Banias, I figured it was just a short-term deal and I wouldn't have it on for very long if I used it at all in the meantime.

The trouble is, now my T41 is acting extremely erratically, in fact, it isn't really usable. It generally starts up just fine, but sometime within the first 3-4 minutes of operation (and frequently during boot-up), the screen goes black and that's it. Sometimes, it won't start up at all and gives me ominous beeps. When I get it all the way through the boot and into XP Pro, the wireless card will not connect, even though I'm sitting right next to the router. In fact, when I try to "refresh available networks", it doesn't really even search, it just comes back immediately and says it couldn't find any networks. Another laptop I have finds the network just fine.

So, I'm not sure what I've done. I was careful during the whole operation, except for the fact that the CPU has been stripped of its thermal paste. I have another T41 that needs a GPU reflow, so I know what that behavior looks like, and this isn't it. It starts up just fine and then just loses video and subsequently seems to just halt.

The question is, can my lack of thermal paste really be the culprit here? Meaning, is it reasonable to expect things will be back to normal if I go get some and apply it liberally? Or it is more likely that I've messed something up that will require FRU replacement?

Anyone with any ideas, opinions or experience with this kind of thing, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

-Tim

[yak]

The thermal compound is absolutely necessary, I wouldn't even try to run the machine without it. The bootup is a CPU intensive process, it probably warms the CPU enough to make it shut down due to lack of proper heat dissipation.

Don't power it on anymore. Wait for the paste and apply it. Search the web for instructions on how to apply the paste properly.

[tdavis34]

Thanks, Yak.

I'll go get some tonight at Radio Shack (I had ordered some on eBay but latered discovered it was being mailed from China - don't feel like waiting 2 weeks to resolve this!).

I will report back with results in case you're curious.

[sktn77a]

The RadioShack stuff is fine - I use it on all my computers. I would certainly try this first but usually there's plenty of paste from the factory to scrape and re-use. Also, the GPU problem can manifest itself in many different ways, so I wouldn't rule that out.